Bio

Rich Orloff is one of the most popular unknown playwrights in the country. His plays have received over 800 productions, numerous awards, and oodles of laughter.

Full-length plays (mostly comedies) include:

  • ADVANCED CHEMISTRY

Winner, 2002 Pickering Award for Playwriting Excellence

  • BIG BOYS

Winner, 1997 InterPlay International Play Festival,
2nd Place, 2002 Kaufman & Hart Prize for New American Comedy

  • DAMAGED GOODS

Winner, 1994 Playwrights First Award

  • DAYS OF POSSIBILITIES

over 20 productions around the country

  • DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY

Winner, 1999 Theatre Conspiracy New Play Contest

  • ENGAGEMENT RULES

World Premiere at Detroit Repertory Theatre, 2011

  • GUY STUFF

Honorable Mention, 2011 Ohio State University New Play Contest

  • RADIO RIDICULOUS

Semi-Finalist, 2011 “Make the House Roar” Prize

  • SHEDDING LIGHT

Winner, 2000 Abeles Foundation Playwrights Award

  • SKIN DEEP

Winner, 2008 Larry Corse Playwriting Prize

  • SOMEONE’S KNOCKING

Back Stage West Critic's Pick, 2008

  • TROPICAL HEAT

Featured at the 2011 Phoenix New Works Festival

  • VERONICA'S POSITION

Winner, 1995 Festival of Emerging American Theatre

Comic revues include:

  • FOREIGN AFFAIRS

New York magazine Off-Off-Broadway pick, 2005

  • FUNNY AS A CRUTCH

The New York Times Critic's Pick, 2008

  • NOTHING SERIOUS

over 40 productions around the world

  • OY!

over 20 productions in the United States and Europe

  • ROMANTIC FOOLS

over 40 productions around the world

Rich’s plays have been presented across the country at such theaters as American Stage Company, Arizona Theatre Company, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Dayton Playhouse, Florida Studio Theatre, New Jersey Rep, Phoenix Theatre Company, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Shadowland Theatre, West Coast Ensemble, the WorkShop Theater Company, twice at Theatre Conspiracy, and three times at the Key West Theatre Festival.

Author of over a dozen one-acts and over 70 short plays, Rich’s short comedies have been published five times in the annual Best American Short Plays series, three times in The Best Ten-Minute Plays series, in The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2007, in The Bedford Guide to Literature, in the bilingual collection An Anthology of Contemporary American Plays (published in China), and in anthologies published by Random House and Western Michigan University Press.  Playscripts has published eight volumes of his plays. (For details, visit Rich's page at Playscripts.com.)

Rich's short plays have had over 700 productions on six of the seven continents (and a staged reading in Antarctica).

Rich has also written for newspapers, magazines, radio, television, industrial films, educational videos, advertising, and charity galas. While in Kosovo in 2000, Rich wrote the children’s play SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS FIGHT TUBERCULOSIS for Doctors of the World.

Rich lives in New York City, but he loves to travel (and has visited 35 states so far to develop productions, talk at colleges, and work as a playwright).

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